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MONTREAL—Lewis Hamilton went flag-to-flag to win Sunday’s 46th Grand Prix du Canada in what can only be described as a mostly boring race.

It was his fourth Canadian GP win, with the first coming in 2007.

Hamilton led into the first corner and was never headed in the 70-lap, 300-kilometre chase that took a little more than 90 minutes to run. In the end, the average speed during the race was 199.336 km/h.

Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, finished second, 2.2 seconds behind, but the finish was never in doubt, while Valtteri Bottas was third in a Williams-Mercedes.

Neither Hamilton nor Rosberg lost their positions when they went to the pits for tires during the race, such was their dominance. Seventeen of the 20 starters were around for the finish but only the top eight were on the lead lap.

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If there was any real drama or excitement it was watching two of Formula One’s veterans fighting their way to the front after being forced to start near the back of the field because of either poor qualifying efforts and/or penalties.

Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, now driving for Ferrari after tallying up his titles while employed by Infiniti Red Bull, started 18th but got all the way up to fifth, one spot behind his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, who had some consolation for missing the podium: he set the fastest lap during the race — one minute and 16.987 seconds on Lap 42, which translates into a speed of 203.925 km/h.

And Felipe Massa, who started 15th, was running sixth when the checkered flag waved.

Even the post-race media conferences were subdued, with all three drivers saying pretty much exactly what you would expect them to say.

Hamilton: “Did I need this (after the disappointment of finishing third at the last race in Monaco when he was called to the pits for tires while leading)? I think so.”

He then elaborated on his race.

“I didn’t feel happy or the most comfortable,” he said. “I generally had a lot of understeer but I never really felt too much under pressure. Nico was quick, but I felt like I always had it under control. I don’t know how it (the race) was to watch, but it felt like it was intense and I really enjoyed it.”

Rosberg: “I was pushing like mad to try to put the pressure on him (Hamilton), but he didn’t make any mistakes, so fair play. It was a challenging race, yeah, because we had to manage fuel, brakes, all these things, but it was the same for Lewis. Second place is okay.”

Bottas (who scored his team’s first podium of the season when he inherited third place from Raikkonen after the Ferrari driver inexplicably lost control of his car and spun at the hairpin): “The mistake by Kimi allowed us to advance one position and we also changed the plan with the strategy, which I thought was really dynamic, so really good job for the team and it was not a bad race for me either.”

There was some mid-race drama when radio transmissions between the Mercedes pits and the drivers appeared to indicate that the pilots — with the team’s permission — were going to have a showdown for the win in the last 10 laps.

Rosberg was told on Lap 36, for instance: “Brake wear is critical. We’d like you to manage it for 10 laps before attacking Lewis.”

And Hamilton was told to save fuel to fend off a challenge at the end of the race because Rosberg — although he had some brake issues — was safer on fuel than he was.

But then none of it happened. In fact, Hamilton increased the gap between the two of them almost at will and although he was only a little more than two seconds ahead at the end, he was always in control of this Grand Prix.

There were a few humorous moments. One came when Fernando Alonso, who left Ferrari to drive for McLaren-Honda and is suffering through a dreadful season, was not amused when his team told him to save fuel.

“I already have a big problem,” he said in reply. “We are looking like amateurs.”

Shortly after, Alonso retired, as did his teammate, Jenson Button later in the race. The other driver who didn’t finish was Roberto Merhi, whose Manor Marussia car broke down.

Auto racing is complex enough without adding to the trouble, but the stewards at this Grand Prix took the rules and regulations to the max.

Button’s hybrid engine — or power plant, as they’re now called — had to be changed after it gave up the ghost during qualifying on Saturday. As he didn’t officially set a time, Button didn’t qualify to start the race Sunday. But the stewards decided to let him race anyway.

Fair enough. But because the team, McLaren-Honda, had gone over the limit of power plants that could be used at this point in the season, those same stewards penalized Button 15 grid positions as per the rules. But since he was going to start last anyway, the penalty was moot.

It gets better. Max Verstappen was penalized five grid positions as a result of causing a collision during the last race at Monaco. When he arrived in Montreal, he was penalized another 10 grid positions because his team, Scuderia Toro Rosso, had — like McLaren — used too many power plants.

After he finished 12th in qualifying, the five-place penalty from Monaco moved him back to 17th. Then they applied the 10-place power plant penalty but couldn’t move him back further than 19th because Button was already sitting in 20th. So they gave the 17-year-old Verstappen a 10-second time penalty during the race. He finished 15th.

And then there was Vettel’s penalty for passing a car under a red flag during practice on Saturday.

It’s no wonder the official starting grid wasn’t determined until an hour before the Sunday afternoon race.

The next Grand Prix takes place in two weeks in Austria. Hamilton continues to lead the drivers’ championship with 151 points. Rosberg is second with 134 and Vettel third with 108. Mercedes leads the constructors’ championship 242 points to 158 for Ferrari. Williams is third with 81 points.

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